Boethius Quotes

In blindness men are content, and know not where lies hid the good which they desire.

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Speak out, hide it not in thy heart.

Boethius (Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Nothing is miserable unless you think it is so.

Variant: Nothing is miserable but what is thought so.Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.

Boethius

If there is a God, whence proceed so many evils? If there is no God, whence cometh any good?

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home.

Boethius

In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.

Boethius

He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, can look fortune in the face.

Variant: He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, and set proud death beneath his feet, can look fortune in the face.Boethius (Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Mutability is our tragedy, but it's also our hope. The worst of time, like the best, are always passing away.

Boethius(attributed)

For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy.

Variant: For in every ill-turn of fortune the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy.Boethius (Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

The knowledge of music makes the musician, of medicine a physician, and of rhetorics a rhetorician.

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

The nature of things consists in not mixing its effects with things of opposite qualities, and in voluntarily repelling what is repugnant or hurtful to it.

Boethius (Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.

Variant: Who can give law to lovers? Love is a greater law to itself.
Variant: Who shall set a law to lovers? Love is a greater law unto itself.Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

What if my changing nature is itself a reason that you should hope for better things?

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Learn this great truth, from my disastrous fate,
All human bliss is but an empty name.

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.

Boethius

Ah! hapless state of human race!
How quick do all their pleasures pass!
And too, too weak their minds to bear
Life's varied scenes of woe and care.

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

If first you rid yourself of hope and fear
You have dismayed the tyrant's wrath:
But whosoever quakes in fear or hope,
Drifting and losing his mastery,
Has cast away his shield, has left his place,
And binds the chain with which he will be bound.

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Let not your spirit eat itself away for you are set in the sphere that is common to all, let your desire therefore be to live with your own lot of life, a subject of the kingdom of the world.

Boethius (Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Good men seek it by the natural means of the virtues; evil men, however, try to achieve the same goal by a variety of concupiscences, and that is surely an unnatural way of seeking the good. Don't you agree?

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

It's my belief that history is a wheel. 'Inconstancy is my very essence,' says the wheel. Rise up on my spokes if you like but don't complain when you're cast back down into the depths. Good time pass away, but then so do the bad.

Boethius

He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, and set proud death beneath his feet, can look fortune in the face, unbending both to good and bad: his countenance unconquered he can shew. The rage and threatenings of the sea will not move him though they stir from its depths the upheaving swell: Vesuvius's furnaces may never so often burst forth, and he may send rolling upwards smoke and fire; the lightning, whose wont it is to smite down lofty towers, may flash upon its way, but such men shall they never move. Why then stand they wretched and aghast when fierce tyrants rage in impotence? Fear naught, and hope naught: thus shall you have a weak man's rage disarmed. But whose fears with trembling, or desires aught from them, he stands not firmly rooted, but dependent: thus has he thrown away his shield: he can be rooted up, and he links for himself the very chain whereby he may be dragged.

Boethius(Consolation of Philosophy, 524)

Boethius Biography

Born: 480Died: 525

Boethius was a Roman philosopher. He is mostly known for his work, "Consolation of Philosophy", a piece which he wrote during his imprisonment before his imminent execution.